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Topic: A real puzzle -- help needed (Read 3986 times)

My bees drew some comb that I wanted to use to raise some queens, and the queen obligingly filled the cells with eggs. I was a little concerned that the cells looked too big to be brood comb, but maybe drone comb. I measured them and they were intermediate between brood and drone, so I put the frame in my queenless split. By my count I should be transferring cells to nucs on Friday, so I went into the hive to see how many I should prepare. This is what I found:

I've never let the bees drawn their own comb without foundation before, so I don't know if what I'm looking at is really drone comb, or brood comb with shallower walls. The mystifying part is the queen cells -- or what appear to be queen cells. I think I know the answer to this question, but here goes anyway: the bees wouldn't try to make queens from drone eggs, would they???

Bees will only start a queen cell from drone eggs under one condition I know of and that's when you only have drone eggs. If you have worker brood in the hive, then I would say the queen cells have queens in them. If you have a drone laying queen they probably have drones in them.

If they bees have had nothing but worker comb it's normal for them to draw a frame of drones and rear them. If you put the drone comb on the outside edge of the brood nest they will use it when they need to and fill it with honey the rest of the time.

"It is not surprising, therefore, that such cells are constructed in hives governed by queens laying the eggs of males only. It is no longer extraordinary that these queens deposit in the royal cells, eggs of the only species they can lay, for in general their instinct seems affected. But what I cannot comprehend is, why the bees take exactly the same care of the male eggs deposited in royal cells, as of those that should become queens. They provide them more plentifully with food, they build up the cells as if containing a royal worm; in a word, they labour with such regularity that we have frequently been deceived. More than once, in the firm; persuasion of finding royal nymphs, we have opened the cells after they were sealed, yet the nymph of a drone always appeared. Here the instinct of the workers seemed defective. In the natural state, they can accurately distinguish the male worms from those of common bees, as they never fail giving a particular covering to the cells containing the former. Why then can they no longer distinguish the worms of drones, when deposited in the royal cell? The fact deserves much attention. I am convinced that to investigate the instinct of animals, we must carefully observe where it appears to err." -- FranÃ§ois Huber 21 August 1791

First, let the colony draw its own comb in a frame, which they draw as drone comb because the rest of the hive has worker foundation. Then, when the queen lays DRONE eggs, I put them in a queenless split so they can RAISE QUEENS!!!

This was my unfortunate first attempt to raise queens. I allowed the breeder hive to draw their own comb from wax foundation triangles, and they drew drone comb. And the queen laid drone eggs in it. It didn't become obvious to me until after the frame sat in a queenless finisher box for a week. (The queenless bees added new comb in the spaces between the triangles, which is why there are large gaps missing brood). The capped brood did eventually all open up and release drones, and those alleged queen cells disappeared. Fortunately, when I discovered what happened, I put two frames of worker eggs and brood into the nuc, and they drew out real queen cells that had emerged by last weekend when I inspected. I'm hoping to see a mated, laying queen in there when I inspect this weekend. The box is still very populated and bringing in lots of pollen, so I think it's straightening out.